Dutch Treat
by Hans Ree

Sweat, Leather and Gunpowder

If I remember well, the protagonist of the novel "Good as Gold" by
Joseph Heller had an older brother who derived satanic pleasure
from making statements in which a multitude of untruths tumble
over each other in a narrow space.

For instance he says: "Lets talk geography. Did you know that
eagles are completely blind in the daytime?" The younger brother
knows that it would be wise to keep his mouth shut, but he cannot
and he says: "Not geography of course, you mean biology. And it's
not eagles about whom it is said that they are blind, but moles, and
that's not true either.''

The father intervenes: "Oh, our learned know-it-all knows better
again. It would truly be a miracle if it were different this time, for a
change." Or the brother says: "Are you aware that nobody knows
where the mouth of the Nile is?'' And again, against his better
judgement, the know-it-all allows himself to be provoked. "What
you mean is not the mouth but the source of the Nile, and ,by the
way there is more then one source of the Nile and it is not at all
true that nobody knows these sources, because they were
discovered long ago.'' Now the father gets really angry. "Who
always has to spoil the pleasant atmosphere at the dinner table?
The little pedant who has to correct everyone and is always looking
for an argument."

That pedant am I, and the satanic fabulist is the Dutch chess writer
Lex Jongsma. At least that's how it sometimes appeared to me
when I was reading the book 60 Jaar Hoogovens Schaaktoernooi,
written by Lex Jongsma and Alexander Mnninghoff. A book in
Dutch about the tournament that abroad is usually known as "Wijk
aan Zee", after the town where it is held nowadays. 60 Years
Hoogovens Chess Tournament. Let me give an example of the
fabulist's art. It is about Herman Pilnik, in the fifties a player who
was often seen at the Hoogovens tournament. Jongsma writes
about him: "One of the Polish players (the other was Najdorf) who
stayed in Argentina after the Olympiad in 1939." The pedant that I
am - I cannot restrain myself. Not Polish, Pilnik was born in
Germany and never played for a Polish team, he didn't even take
part in that Olympiad of 1939 and no wonder he stayed in
Argentina in that year - he had been living there since 1930. 

And somewhat later Jongsma writes: "There would be a Chilean
intermezzo (new wife, new country, Pilnik on first board of the
Chilean Olympiad team..." Now what's this again? In his whole
life Pilnik never played for any Olympic team other than that
of Argentina. 

Or take the lines he writes about the Russian chessplayer
Ilyin-Zhenevsky. Only a few lines, in which we are told that
Ilyin-Zhenevsky was an anarchist about whom it was rumoured
that he had tried to murder Lenin and Stalin, and who had taken the
name Zhenevsky because in his youth he had won a bet that he
could bike around Lake Geneva within 24 hours.

Now, really. The pedant has to object again. Not an anarchist but a
Bolshevist and the supposed rumours about these murder attempts
apparently never reached Lenin or Stalin, because until his death
by German bombing in 1941 during the Leningrad siege, Ilyin held
important positions in the Soviet Union. And he took the name
Zhenevsky because he had lived in Geneva and was proud that he
had been chess champion of that city. It took no great research to
know all this; I just consulted a common book of reference.

Or about Robert Fischer: "Remember that Fischer had been in
retirement since 1962 and would only appear in the smithy again in
1970." With the smithy Jongsma means the world of chess. A
small kernel of truth can be discerned here, because Fischer really
was not very active between 1963 and 1969, but all the same
during that period he played in two US Championships and took
part in events in Havana (twice), Santa Monica, Monte Carlo,
Skopje, Sousse, Netanya and Vinkovci. Lugano 1968 I do not
count, because there he left before the first round started, because
he didn't like the lighting in the tournament hall.

Jongsma's fabulations have a certain monumental beauty and one
wonders if he creates them on purpose, like that brother of Gold. It
might be so. He describes an incident from 1971 at some length in
which Najdorf and I were involved. About a year ago he told me
his version of what had happened. I said he had misunderstood a
few things and enlightened him as to these details. Jongsma
listened attentively and, as I see now, did not change a thing in his
text. It is not as if I feel badly treated. Not one unfriendly word is
written about me. But I don't quite understand it. Let me not be the
pedant who spoils the pleasant atmosphere at the dinner table. This
is a book with rich content. Both Jongsma and Mnninghoff have
exerted themselves to dig up fascinating stories and humorous
anecdotes and most of these are undoubtedly true. And sixty years
of Hoogovens tournaments form a wonderful subject. The world's
most dear tournament Mnninghoff calls it somewhere and that is
exactly my opinion.

Jongsma and Mnninghoff belong to the true devotees who, as
soon as they had escaped from the prison of secondary school,
never lost an opportunity to be part of this chess festival of
"passion, drama, death and resurrection, tears of happiness and
pain, of sweat, leather and gunpowder".

I was rather shocked to read how often this tournament has been on
the brink of being closed down by the steel company Hoogovens,
which for many years incurred heavy losses and had to minimize
on expenses in all kinds of ways. At the moment the tournament is
assured of being held until the year 2002. Doomsayers have said
that this may mean that it will be discontinued then, but I don't
believe that. Let me quote Mnninghoff. He attended the closing
ceremony and dinner of the 1998 tournament. "We went outside
with hundreds of people, into the cold night. The black hole of the
beach was our destination and there we stood, the chess tribe.
Crack, boom, fire and glow: Fireworks saying "See you again in
1999" radiated to us. We were overwhelmed by a warm inner
surge. Because The Tournament goes on. It's unthinkable that it
should not. As simple as that," says Mnninghoff, and I say:
Bravo!

Apart from the book, Interchess (the publishers of "New in Chess"
magazine) also brought out a CD-rom with all games that have
been played in these sixty years in the grandmaster and master
groups, with analytical notes, statistical material, small
biographies, photographs's and a short film.

What to show from the wealth of sixty Hoogovens tournaments?
My choice is a vanished cultural treasure, the adjourned game.

(See Diagram)
White: Kd2, Qe1,Rc3, Rg1, Na7, Be3; pawns - a4, b6, c6, e4, g4
Black: Kg8, Qh3, Rf1, Rg3, Bd8, Be6; pawns - c7, d6, e5, g2, g5

White Bhm (Netherlands) Black: Biyiasis (Canada), from the
1980 tournament. 

Such a madly complicated position and what a blessing that it
didn't have to be played out, groping in the dark, in the first
session, but after a two-hour interruption, so that the players could
more or less ascertain where they stood and what they should do.
White had sealed 41. b6-b7 Then followed 41...Rf1xe1 42. b7-b8Q
Rg3xe3 43. Qb8xd8+ Kg8-f7 44. Qd8xc7+ Kf7-g6 45. Rg1xe1
g2-g1Q 46. Rc3xe3 Qg1-f2+ 47. Kd2-d3 Qh3-g2 48. Re1-e2
During the intermission Bhm had calculated a long variation by
which he hoped to reach a draw: 48...Qff1 49. Kd2 Qgg1 50. Re1
Dff2+ 51. R1e2 Qf8 52. Nb5 Bxg4 53. Qxd6+ Qxd6 54. Nxd6
Bxe2 55. Kxe2 Qc1 56. Nf5 Qc2+ 57. Kf3 Kf6 58. a5 and maybe a
fortress can be made. But after three quarters of an hour's thought
Biyiasis played differently: 48...Qg2-f1 49. Kd3-d2 Qf1-e1+ 50.
Kd2-c2 Qf2xe2+ 51. Re3xe2 Qe1xe2+ Quite miraculously a
material balance has been reached, but now black wins by a mating
attack. 52. Kc2-c1 Qe2-e1+ 53. Kc1-c2 Qe1xe4+ 54. Kc2-c1
Qe4-c4+ 55. Kc1-b2 Qc4-b4+ 56. Kb2-c1 Qb4-a3+ 57. Kc1-d2
Qa3-b2+ 58. Kd2-d3 e5-e4+ 59. Kd3xe4 Qb2-e2+ 60. Ke4-d4
Qe2-d2+ 61. Kd4-e4 Be6-d5 mate. 

This column first appeared in the Dutch newspaper
RC-Handelsblad October 10, 1998. 

Copyright 1998 Hans Ree, All Rights Reserved. 